


I Will Not Know My Name

by alyyks



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Amnesiac Shepard (Mass Effect), Gen, Identity Issues, Mass Effect 2, Originally Posted on Tumblr, mentioned other mass effect characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2020-05-12 07:37:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19224619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyyks/pseuds/alyyks
Summary: A snapshot of an amnesiac Shepard playing "fake it 'till you make it" with everyone during the events of Mass Effect 2





	I Will Not Know My Name

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr, brought on by playing Mass Effect 2 as essentially an Amnesiac Shepard who I modeled after the Star Wars The Clone Wars clones.

He hated his cabin. No, hated was too strong a word. It was  _impractical_. Too big, too much, and what the hell was he supposed to do with an aquarium. He got Jack’s idea to go hide in the engines. Had she not set up her space under there, he’d have been tempted to crawl in. Better defenses, better hiding space. 

Who the hell needed sleep anyway. 

_Who_ , indeed.

He—no,  _Shepard_  he was Shepard, he was still not used to that, to the name, and he needed to be, because that was precious seconds of reaction time he could not afford to lose in combat. They all knew him as Shepard, that was who he was supposed to be. 

He had no idea who he was. 

The armor helped, both familiar and unfamiliar. A part of him was convinced it was wearing the wrong colors. A part of him caught his reflection and saw other people in them. Other people with the exact same face as him. 

He needed more information, about everything, but he had limited his search to the two years he was told he had missed. You never knew who was reading what you were reading—he was not going to trust Cerberus an inch. The Illusive Man and his lackeys already knew too much. Who knew what they’d do with the knowledge their miraculously recovered Shepard was faking it. 

Faking it so well even Shepard’s friends believed he was him. 

Engineering was quiet. Daniels and Donnelly both were absent—off-shit, his omni-tool confirmed. Only Tali remained. 

He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had kept in. He slid to the floor, carefully taking a seat against the wall with enough view of the entrances. He’d pay for it getting back up, could already anticipate the bone-deep ache in his left side. 

He just breathed, watching Tali work. She and Garrus were so much easier to be around than everyone else. 

She turned to watch him back after a few minutes, a question in all her body. 

“You don’t do social visits, Shepard,” she told him.  _So what are you doing_ , implied.

“Don’t let me distract you,” he said. 

She shrugged and turned back to the console. She didn’t try to start a conversation, just talked at the console sometimes, commenting without expecting an answer. 

He just breathed. 

* * *

 

Liara gives him his tags back. Alliance tags, with dates he hadn’t known, with his name, whoever he is, whoever he was, on them. 

_John Shepard._   _  
_

_Shepard_  is familiar enough.  _John_  is a complete stranger. 

Liara, like the others who knew him before Cerberus, does not seem to ping on the fact that he does not know her, not like Commander Shepard should have. It is nice to see her, as much as it’s strange—something like a rattling noise one can never find the source of, that ends up as background noise but drives you crazy if you pay too much attention to it.

He probably shouldn’t have let her on the ship. She’s the Shadow Broker now. Knows too much. Can do too much. As much as he sees the use of the network the successive Shadow Brokers built, he should have torched it to the ground. Cut the engines on the ship and let it crash into the constant storms of Hagalaz.

And on the datapad he stole at the first opportunity, making sure it was not controlled by Cerberus and unavailable to EDI, is his own file, the one the Shadow Broker had complied. A lifetime of information. A life that’s more and more removed from the one he’s living right here and now. 

He has names and faces for people who knew him, people who thought him dead, people who think he’s crazy. 

Maybe he is. He keeps catching glimpses of his reflection in the aquarium in his room (and aquarium? Really? That might still be the stupidest thing going on on this ship.) and expecting it to belong to other people. 

None of them had ever worn a red and white stripe on their arm.

 


End file.
